It will be appreciated that a printhead of the printer engine of a page width printer has a width dimension measured in fractions of millimeters. Typically the printhead has a width dimension of about six hundred micrometers. In an array of ink jet nozzles, adjacent nozzles could be spaced from each other by dimensions in the order of 100 micrometers. While the substrate of the printhead is made from a silicon wafer a supply mechanism for supplying ink to the substrate is often made out of plastic. To mold the plastic such that individual ink supplies are provided to each ink supply passage in the substrate results in extremely fine tolerances with the consequential expense, which that entails.
By quote “page width” is meant that the printhead prints one line at a time on the print media without traversing the print media, or rastering, as the print media moves past the printhead.